“Let me look in your throat.” He walked over and grasped hold of her chin, tilting her face back. “Open.”
She opened her mouth and he used the flashlight on his phone to peer into her mouth. “All right, it does look less red. But I don’t want you overdoing it. Use your tablet or phone when you have to talk a lot.”
She sighed but nodded. Her phone was on the coffee table.
“But I do come bearing gifts,” he told her. “Look what I found.” He drew out a soft-looking sweater. On the front of it was the face of a saber-toothed tiger.
“Where on earth did you find that?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I have my ways. I also got you this.” He pulled out a blanket that had a large saber-toothed tiger on it. It looked nice andfluffy and warm, and she immediately shoved off her blanket to grab hold of it and pull it around her.
“I take it you like that?” he asked with amusement.
She nodded.
“I also got you another squishy making kit. This one has much better ratings than the last one, and says it won’t explode. I also got some air dry clay.”
She eyed the kit skeptically.
“Or we could just sit and color,” he said as he sat beside her. “Have you had any breakfast?”
Hmm. Did coffee count as well as a bag of chips?
“I had coffee and chips,” she said.
Surely that hits some of the major food groups, right?
“You had what?” he asked, handing her phone to her pointedly. Obviously he thought she’d talked enough.
“That counts as breakfast food. Chips are potatoes and potatoes are a vegetable. Which is healthy. And I have lots of creamer in my coffee which is dairy.” She gave him a wide smile.
“Hmm, very smart this morning, aren’t you? Unfortunately, most of the potato goodness has been fried out of potato chips by the time they end up in a packet. And creamer doesn’t really have that much dairy in it. You need something healthy.”
Addie didn’t usually eat that healthy, she had to admit. It wasn’t that she didn’t like vegetables, it was just boring cooking for just herself. So she tended to just eat snacks or whatever was quickest. Noodles or hot pockets made perfectly good meals.
She had a feeling he would object to that, though.
“Well, I suppose it’s my fault because I wasn’t here to make you breakfast, but you’re going to have a healthy lunch. I’ll go start on that if you want to take a look at this squishy maker.”
Out here?
Where anyone could walk in? Could she do that?
“Or we’ll go into your bedroom,” he said. “Whatever makes you the most comfortable.”
She shrugged. Actually, the more time she spent here with everyone, the less she cared. It wasn’t like her sisters would judge her. And she didn’t think that Ralen would either.
That only left Butch or Ink and Brody if they turned up. She rather thought that Brody might enjoy joining in.
Although she could be mistaken about that.
So she set everything out on the coffee table. This set came with its own small plastic mat which was good because she wasn’t certain what had happened to the other one.
“Oh, this looks better,” Cash said as he walked in with a plate filled with healthy snack food.
All right. If this was the type of lunch he was going to serve, she would be happy.
The plate held pieces of carrot, cucumber, and sourdough. As well as crackers, grapes, and cubes of cheese. There was even some ranch to dip things into in the middle of the plate.
